Only the shadow knows

Recognising limits should inform ethics in public relations

Emmanuel Levinas is considered by many the premiere ethicist of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The connection of Levinas, known for a mantra of “ethics as first philosophy,” to public relations, however, generates pause for the reader.

My contention is Levinas’s insights take us to issues of ethical import in the public domain. Levinas’s insights are an oxymoron; his work is dense and, at times, confounds readers. Yet, Levinas’s project emerges from a practical aim. In response to the atrocities of World War II, Levinas offered an emphasis on ethics. Additionally, for over 30 years, he did so as he ran École Normale Israélite Orientale, a school for Jewish students founded by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, who served French and French African communities.

Each day Levinas engaged practical tasks; he had to keep students happy and interested in ideas while running the daily operations of the school. Levinas’s obligations included fixing showers, overseeing rituals, facilitating school events, and disciplining students. Levinas’s ethics as first philosophy found practical application in everyday life with the students. This internationally-known philosopher engaged the task of learning, teaching, and administration as he performed everyday public relations with a constituency that was often demanding. Meeting and negotiating with a questioning public is exhausting; in Levinas’s case, he dealt with students, parents, and any problems that might emerge throughout the night.

Going beyond

My entrance into the discussion of Levinas, a journey to his work, finds guidance in Johanna Fawkes’s book, Public Relations Ethics and Professionalism: The Shadow of Excellence. I connect Fawkes’s work to Levinas’s insights with the notion of shadow, which suggests an influence beyond and somewhat outside someone’s immediate grasp. The term “beyond” is central to Levinas’s project and a pivotal idea for Fawkes’s work.

Fawkes immediately examines Grunig and Hunt’s 1984 explication of public relations models, which have shifted from one-way monologic approaches to public information models. Symmetrical two-way engagements consisting of a basic sender and receiver model followed one-way models of public relations. This perspective was followed by a dialogic asymmetrical standard that permitted organisations and audiences to learn from and influence one another.

“The notion of shadow accounts for appropriate questioning and the reality of unintended consequences.”

Concluding this review, Fawkes examines the linguistically awkward term “postmodernity,” which is not a progressive advance from modernity, but better understood as a meta-communication juncture where agreement on narrative and virtue structures is not present. Postmodernity assumes that remnants of all historical eras are co-present. Fawkes contends that the difficulty of finding out the truth in such a historical moment requires the guidance of Carl Jung and his stress on shadow. Jung, of course, was one of the three founders of psychotherapeutic theory, alongside Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler. The shadow side within postmodernity accounts for the necessity of doubt; one cannot be 100% confident in one’s actions. The notion of shadow accounts for appropriate questioning and the reality of unintended consequences.

Acknowledging shadows

Failure to recognise the shadow component of life invites what Jean-Paul Sartre termed “bad faith,” fibbing to oneself that assurance of truth is possible with me and my actions. Fawkes points, along with other scholars in the field of public relations, to several ways in which we can embrace an understanding of shadow while pursuing excellence via public relations ethics.

The first observation is that the notion of shadow necessitates acknowledgement of imperfection. No public relations response can embrace all issues as we focus in one direction and inevitably miss other possibilities that are co-present and outside our initial view. Imperfection is the first dimension of the shadow side of public relations ethics.

The second shadow dimension is partisanship in public relations. We do not work for the public; we embrace a stance or a position that requires protecting and promoting.

Third, accounting for a shadow in public relations ethics calls for the limits of provinciality. Our vision, no matter how global we may think it might be, is tied to limits of what we know and what we can imagine.

Fourth, as we engage the responsibility of public relations ethics, the interactive component of working with a public interrupts our confidence in ethics and justice. Awareness of the shadow side of ethics and justice undercuts self-righteousness, a performative attribute held in significant disdain by Levinas.

“Levinas suggests that one should be wary of what people say they will do, looking, instead, for what they do after being called into action”

Each time we assume our behaviour is ethical, it is interrupted by a demand for justice—attending to those outside the immediate decision-making scope of action. Justice includes those not at the current table of decision-making and influence. As one seeks to enact public relations ethics, the shadow of justice interrupts confidence in one’s actions. When one is supremely confident of being just, the reality is more often an omission of people outside the scope of one’s vision and reach. The shadow side of a customer culture is the recognition that ethics and justice rests with the impersonal, often missing those not affected by an immediate action.

In 1935 Levinas published On Escape. His notion of escape links to the shadow side of the life of a hero, the unwanted heroism of the everyday. In the West, one understands the shadow role of the hero via an “I” recorded in the impulse to escape from a life of burden and responsibility. Levinas, on the other hand, points to a non-heroic heroism that embraces this sense of shadow. Instead of identifying an “I” wading into a given conflict or issue, he discusses an “I” called into responsible action, often reluctantly. Levinas reminds us of the difference between a parent who says, “I will be an outstanding parent” and a parent who quietly shows up whenever needed. He prompts memory of a person who suggests, “Never fear, I am in charge” in contrast to a person who acts in a steady fashion, doing what is needed when called to assist. Levinas suggests that one should be wary of what people say they will do, looking, instead, for what they do after being called into action. Perhaps the most significant shadow side of public relations ethics is how one responds, not how one imposes upon others.

Imperfect heroes

The unlikely union of Levinas and public relations ethics dwells within recognition of the shadow dimension of ethical efforts and the importance of practical decision-making. Responsibility to and with others offers no practical avenue of escape. We must respond with responsibility that acknowledges imperfection, the reality of our partisan roles, and a recognition that the context of understanding is always bigger than my orientation, my organisation, and my perspective, while admitting the demanding nature of ethics and justice in practical life.

The shadow side of public relations ethics carries with it a reminder of the fallibility of theory, people, and products and the necessity of continuing to work with responsibility to and for others. What permits the excellence of a product and an organization is that the call for responsibility does not begin with a volunteering hero. Our hope rests, on the contrary, in a reluctant hero who continually responds to a local place and the needs of a given people. Heroes do not volunteer; they are called forth and respond. Perhaps Levinas’s entire theory is about how I am called forth in response. Fawkes and Levinas, together, offer a story about public relations ethics in a practical manner that acknowledges shadows over self-righteous assurance. The task of public relations from an ethical perspective begins not with perfection, but with admission of our limits.


This brief summary is an outline of “Public Relations: Levinas’ Call for Ethics and Justice,” published in Communication Ethics in a Connected World: Research in Public Relations and Organisational Communication.

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Ronald C. Arnett

Ronald C. Arnett is chair and professor of the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies) and The Patricia Doherty Yoder and Ronald Wolfe Endowed Chair in Communication Ethics (2015-2018) at Duquesne University.  He was previously also the Henry Koren, C.S.Sp., Endowed Chair for Scholarly Excellence (2010-2015). Ronald is the author/co-author of nine books and four edited books.